(These Stone Walls) ...Patron saints really are advocates in Heaven, but the story is bigger than
that. To have patron saints means something deeper than just hoping to share in
the graces for which they suffered. It means to be in a relationship with them
as fellow travelers. They can advocate not only for us, but for the souls of
those we entrust to their intercession. In the Presence of God, they are more
like a lens for us, and not dispensers of grace in their own right. The
Protestant critique that Catholics “pray to saints” has it all wrong.

To be in a relationship with patron saints means much more than just waiting
for their help in times of need. I have learned a few humbling things this year
about the dynamics of a relationship with Saints Maximilian Kolbe and Padre Pio.
I have tried to consciously cope with painful things the way they did, and over
time they opened my eyes about what it means to have their advocacy. It’s an
advocacy I would not need if I were even remotely like them. It’s an advocacy I
need very much, and can no longer live without.

I don’t think we choose the saints who will be our patrons and advocates in
Heaven. I think they choose us. In ways both subtle and profound, they interject
their presence in our lives. I came into this prison over 18 years ago knowing
little to nothing of Saints Maximilian Kolbe and Padre Pio. But in multiple
posts on These Stone Walls I’ve written of how they made their presence
here known. And in that process, I’ve learned a lot about why they’re now in my
life. It is not because they look upon me and see their own paths. It’s because
they look upon me and see how much and how easily I stray from their paths.

One day earlier this month, I discovered something about the intervention of
these saints that is at the same time humbling and deeply consoling. It’s
consoling because it affirms for me that these modern saints have made
themselves a part of what I must bear each day. It’s humbling because that fact
requires shedding all my notions that their intercession means a rescue from the
crosses I’d just as soon not carry... (continued)

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

BURBANK (CBSLA.com) — The Walt Disney Company has agreed to buy Lucasfilm Ltd., which includes the Star Wars franchise, for $4.05 billion in cash and stock from George Lucas, it was announced Tuesday.

The deal includes a tentative 2015 release date of Stars Wars Episode 7, along with the possibility of growing the franchise with more feature films.

“Lucasfilm reflects the extraordinary passion, vision, and
storytelling of its founder, George Lucas,” Robert A. Iger, Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company, said in a
statement.

Current Co-Chairman of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy, will become President and report to Walt Disney Chairman Alan Horn.

“This transaction combines a world-class portfolio of content including Star Wars, one
of the greatest family entertainment franchises of all time, with
Disney’s unique and unparalleled creativity across multiple platforms,
businesses, and markets to generate sustained growth and drive
significant long-term value,” Iger said.

The company said Kennedy will serve as the brand manager for Stars Wars, as well as the executive producer on the upcoming film.

“It’s now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. I’ve always believed that Star Wars
could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the
transition during my lifetime,” Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of
Lucasfilm, George Lucas said. “I’m confident that with Lucasfilm under
the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy, and having a new home within the
Disney organization, Star Wars will certainly live on and
flourish for many generations to come. Disney’s reach and experience
give Lucasfilm the opportunity to blaze new trails in film, television,
interactive media, theme parks, live entertainment, and consumer
products.”

Sunday, October 28, 2012

There are some 16 different Orthodox Churches existing independently of
one another. After the first really definite break with Rome when
Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, left the Catholic Church in the
ninth century, the Eastern Church followed in the path of all
schismatical Churches, splitting up into further divisions. Eight of
these separate sections of Orthodoxy have their own Patriarchs, namely,
Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, Bulgaria, Rumania,
Russia, and Servia. The others lack definite rule. The term "Greek
Orthodox Church" is popularly applied to any or all of these Churches;
but strictly speaking it should be reserved for that section of
Orthodoxy which acknowledges the Patriarch of Constantinople. This is
really one of the smaller sections, for the Bulgarians, Rumanians,
Russians and others of Slav nationality, are Greeks in no sense of the
word. But it is clear that there is no one united Orthodox Church at
all, any more than there is one united form of Protestantism. However,
since the schismatic Orthodox Churches began with the rebellion of the
Patriarchate of Constantinople against Rome in the ninth century, we can
allude to all the Orthodox Churches as belonging to the Greek Schism.

1255. Was the Christian Church governed from the beginning with the
Bishop of Rome as supreme and infallible head, or by a Council of
Bishops?

The Church from the very beginning was governed by the Bishops,
including the Bishop of Rome, all the other Bishops being in union with
and subject to the universal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome. At
times the Bishops met together in Councils for more important
deliberations, and the decisions of these Councils were acknowledged as
binding provided they were approved and sanctioned by the Bishop of Rome
as supreme head of the Church.

1256. Did the Patriarchs of the Greek Orthodox Church at any stage
after the death of Christ recognize the Pope as supreme and infallible
head of the Church?

We cannot speak of the "Patriarchs of the Greek Orthodox Church" prior
to the Greek Schism commenced by Photius in 867 A.D. Until then there
were simply Patriarchs of Constantinople, presiding there and subject to
the Pope. Dr. Orchard, when a Congregationalist, wrote, "An examination
of the circumstances of the Great Schism shows that the Eastern Church
did then repudiate a supremacy which it had previously been in the habit
of conceding to the Roman Patriarchate." The First Council of
Constantinople in 381, which only Eastern Bishops attended, demanded
that the Bishop of Constantinople should rank next after the Bishop of
Rome, and before the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch. The Council of
Chalcedon in 451, attended by the Eastern Bishops, ended its discussion
with the unanimous cry, "Peter has spoken by Leo," when the Pope's
decision was given. A century and a half later Pope Gregory I could
still write, "Who doubts that the Church of Constantinople is subject to
the Apostolic See?" No one then doubted it; and no one disputed it
until Photius came along in 867 to plunge the East into schism. The
Patriarch of Constantinople, and all the Eastern Bishops signed the
formula of Hormisdas, who was Pope from 514 to 523. That formula
contained these words, "We follow the Apostolic See in everything and
teach all its laws. I hope to be in that one Communion taught by the
Apostolic See in which is the whole, real, and perfect solidity of the
Christian religion." Dean Milman writes, "Before the end of the third
century the lineal descent of Rome's Bishops from St. Peter was
unhesitatingly claimed and obsequiously admitted by the Christian
world."

1257. What reasons led to the breakaway of the Greeks?

The reasons were chiefly political. According to the most recent
research work of Jugie, Grumel, Amann, and Dvronik, the schism commenced
by Photius in 867 would never have happened had it not been for
political rivalry concerning jurisdiction over Bulgaria. In 861 the
Bulgarians were converted by missionaries from Constantinople. In 866
Pope Nicholas I appointed Bishops for the Bulgarians in order to bring
them under the jurisdiction of the Latin Patriarchate of the West rather
than have them under the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The motive to
maintain Rome's political authority over Constantinople was not absent,
and from this point of view the move was a grave political mistake. The
Greeks resented it, and Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, wrote a
reprehensible letter to the Pope in 867 in which he condemned the
Catholic Church, and made various charges against her even from the
doctrinal point of view. The undeniable provocation did not justify his
doing this.

The Pope excommunicated Photius, who retaliated by excommunicating the
Pope, and the schism commenced. Photius made peace with Pope John VIII,
and was duly recognized as Patriarch of Constantinople; and the
reconciliation endured so long as Photius lived. But trouble had been
set on foot; and intermittent difficulties with Rome continued until
1054 when Michael Cerularius, the then Patriarch of Constantinople,
renewed the break with Rome, moved by sheer ambition to be universal
Patriarch over the whole Church. He won the Emperor to his side by
appealing to national pride in the political importance of
Constantinople. From that time on, no Patriarch of Constantinople has
sought confirmation of his appointment from Rome, nor submitted to the
jurisdiction of the Pope. Greek Delegates to the Second Council of Lyons
in 1274, and again at the Council of Florence in 1439, admitted that
they should do so, and return to unity with Rome. But on each occasion
on their return to the East their admissions were repudiated through
national interests. So the Greek Churches continue in their schismatical
state. Political quarrels and personal antagonisms, with faults on both
sides, were the original cause of the schism, not dogmatic differences.
But from a doctrinal point of view, the Eastern Churches are gradually
drifting from orthodoxy, and yielding to the inroads of modernist
influences.

1258. I have been told that Greek priests have power to consecrate the Eucharist.

Priests of the Greek Orthodox Churches have valid Orders, and when they
offer the Sacrifice of the Mass, they consecrate validly.

1259. As the Greeks are schismatics and heretics also, how can you admit their Orders while denying Anglican Orders?

The Greek Orthodox Churches are separated from the Catholic Church by
schism, or division from its authority; and also by heresy, insofar as
they refuse to admit certain Catholic dogmatic teachings. But these
things do not necessarily affect the question of Orders. If, after
leaving the Catholic Church, such ecclesiastical bodies retain the
correct form of ordination, and administer the Sacrament of Holy Orders
with the right intention, then the priests will be truly ordained, even
though in a schismatical and heretical Church. This is the case with the
Orthodox Greeks. And since Greek priests are truly ordained, they
cannot be reordained should they seek admission to the Catholic Church.
Even in the Anglican Church, after its separation from Rome by Henry
VIII, in 1534, the ordinations continued to be correct for the first
sixteen years, until 1550. But in 1550, during the reign of Edward VI,
the form for ordination was altered, and the intention of ordaining
priests in the Catholic sense of the word was repudiated. From then on,
Anglican Orders have been simply invalid, and converted clergymen from
the Anglican Church must remain either as Catholic laymen, or be
ordained as Catholic priests without any allowance being made for their
previous ordination as ministers in the Church of England.

1260. If a married Greek priest became a Roman Catholic, would he be
allowed to officiate as a priest and still live with his wife?

He could not do so if he adopted the Latin rite. But he could do so if,
as would probably happen, he joined one of the Uniate Greek Churches
which retain their Greek customs and Liturgy even while subject to the
Pope.

1261. Do the Greek Churches believe that Christ is really present in the Eucharist? If so, do they celebrate a valid Mass?

The Greek Churches believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the
Eucharist; and since their priests have valid Orders, they possess the
power of consecrating the Blessed Eucharist in the true sense of the
word. The Sacrifice of the Mass in Greek Churches is, therefore, every
bit as valid as the Mass in the Catholic Church, even though it is not
celebrated in Latin.

1262. May a Catholic hear Mass, then, in a Greek Church?

He may do so in a Uniate Greek Church, but not in any of the
schismatical Orthodox Churches. Those Churches are not part of the
Catholic Church, but are in a state of schism and of protest against the
authority of Christ in His true Church. Churches separated from the
unity of the Catholic Church are not according to the will of Christ,
who demands that His followers should form one flock under one shepherd.
No Catholic therefore may take part in, or sanction in any way, the
services of the Greek Orthodox Churches.

1263. I have heard that, when a Catholic priest is not available,
Catholics may receive the Sacraments from Greek Orthodox priests. Is
that consistent?

When no Catholic priest is available, the Catholic Church permits a
dying Catholic to receive one Sacrament only from a Greek priest, and
that is the Sacrament of Confession. The very law of the Catholic Church
forbidding participation in Greek rites during life is to preserve a
Catholic from danger of schism, and within the true Church, for the sake
of his very salvation. And if, at the hour of death, that salvation can
be the better secured by the reception of absolution from a Greek
priest rather than go without such absolution, the Church wisely and
mercifully permits it. But, as is clear, this exception avails only in
the case of extreme necessity, when no Catholic priest is available, and
on condition that the Catholic merely accepts absolution from the Greek
priest as a priest, and in no way approving his position as a
schismatic.

1264. In what doctrines do the Greek Orthodox Churches differ from the Roman Catholic Church?

They differ on many essential points, although they are much nearer to
Catholicism than they are to Protestantism, insofar as they retain the
bulk of original Christian doctrine, and a valid priesthood. They
acknowledge the doctrine of the Trinity, but deny that the Holy Ghost
proceeds from both Father and Son. They deny the supremacy and
infallibility of the Pope; the right of the Church to baptize by pouring
the water instead of by completely immersing the subject; the right to
give Communion under one kind only; the Catholic doctrine of the
particular and general judgments; also the Catholic doctrine on the
nature of purgatory, although they admit the existence of purgatory.
While believing that Mary was quite sinless, and maintaining a great
devotion to her as the Mother of God, they deny the doctrine of the
Immaculate Conception. This, however, is a more recent denial. The Greek
Churches believed in the Immaculate Conception until the advent of
Protestantism. Under pressure of Protestant opinion they wavered without
denying it. The denial came when the Pope defined the doctrine in 1854,
but merely because they were opposed to the Pope and wished to manifest
their opposition. They have nothing against the doctrine in itself. The
Greeks also differ from Rome concerning the nature of original sin, and
of justification. These are the chief differences, some of them
rendering the Greek Churches heretical as well as schismatical.

1265. I belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, and regard my religion
as identical with the Roman Catholic except for the fact that you
acknowledge the Pope as head, while we acknowledge the Patriarch of
Jerusalem.

Even were that true, you are confronted with a great problem. Christ
declared definitely that His Church would be one fold under one
shepherd. And your duty would be to inquire as to the relative merits of
the Pope and of the Patriarch of Jerusalem in their claims to be head
of the Church. Both cannot be. But, as a matter of fact, you cannot
speak of one Greek Orthodox Church with the Patriarch of Jerusalem as
its head. The Rev. C. J. MacGillivray, in his book, "Through the East to
Rome," 1931, says that, as an Anglican clergyman, he spent some years
in the East amongst the Greeks and Syrians, working for the reunion of
Greeks and Anglicans. He found it impossible, and in the end became a
Catholic. On page 91 of his book he writes: "To begin with, there is no
such thing as the 'Orthodox Church.' There is a group of some 15 or 16
independent Churches, recognizing no common authority, but loosely
connected as being all 'Orthodox.' And again, if you leave out Russia,
the whole number of the Orthodox is exceedingly small; and the Russian
Church was only held together by the power of the State. Compared to the
Roman Catholic Church the so-called Orthodox Church is just a
collection of fossilized and moribund fragments of what was once a great
and living Church. Indeed it seems to me to be a great object lesson in
the disastrous consequences of abandoning the rock on which the Church
of Christ was built. The Orthodox Church has ceased to be a living
teacher. It is incapable of any sort of development, or of that constant
advance in thought and undying vitality which are characteristic of the
Roman Catholic Church. It is not, indeed, carried about with every wind
of doctrine like the Protestant Churches. It has, in the main, kept the
old Faith, but only at the cost of ceasing to think. On all the vital
questions which have been discussed, and in many cases settled in the
West, it neither has, nor can have anything to say." Such is the
impression formed from first-hand knowledge by the Rev. C. J.
MacGillivray during his sojourn amongst Eastern Christians as an
Anglican clergyman. You cannot, therefore, speak of the Greek Church as
one Church; and not all the groups comprising it acknowledge the
jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Jerusalem by any means.

1266. Even though in schism, the Greek Orthodox Church is at least an Apostolic Church.

That cannot be admitted. The word "Apostolic" in general signifies the
identity of a present Church with the Church of the Apostles. This
identity can be either adequate or inadequate. Adequate apostolicity is
present when a Church of today has not only the same doctrine and
worship, and the same episcopal constitution, but also the same
uninterrupted and lawfully transmitted jurisdiction or authority.
Without this latter requirement, any vestiges of apostolicity are
inadequate, and useless as a mark of identification. The chief thing,
therefore, is the continued juridical succession of apostolic authority.
Now this element precisely is missing from the Greek Orthodox Church.
By the mere fact of being in schism, apostolic authority is forfeited.
In addition, the Greek Church has not preserved the Faith intact in many
points. The Greek Church cannot therefore be called apostolic in the
technical sense of that word.

1267. Do you deny the Greek Church to be truly Catholic?

Yes. By Catholic we mean a given Church, i.e., one united Church, which
remains everywhere essentially the same, and inherits the commission of
Christ to teach all nations as a right, exercising that right by
constantly propagating itself in continual expansion. Now, in the first
place, there is no one Greek Orthodox Church. For example, there is no
authoritative bond of union between the Greek Churches of
Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Russia, Servia, Rumania, Bulgaria,
Ukraine, and Estonia, etc. Moreover, these Greek Churches are not even
conscious of a Divine commission to teach all nations. They consent to
be national in their outlook, and show no sign of the expansive power
which seeks to propagate itself amongst all peoples. The Greeks declare
the Latins to have fallen into schism, yet make no effort to convert
them back to "Orthodoxy." Is it not significant that, while no Latins
ever followed the Patriarch of Constantinople, many in the East,
including many Patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria, remained in
Communion with Rome after the schisms of Photius and Cerularius? It is
impossible to regard the Greek Orthodox Churches as Catholic in the true
sense of the word.

1268. Since Greek Orthodoxy is so near to Roman Catholicism, why change from one to the other?

The mere fact that they are not identical is sufficient reason for a
change from Greek Orthodoxy to Catholicism. It is necessary to be
subject to the right authority. Obedience is the very heart of religion.
We went from God by disobedience; the road back is by obedience. And
the authority of the Pope is that of Christ. Of him Christ said, "He
that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me." Lk 10:16. Again, Christ said, "If a man will not hear the Church, let him be as the heathen." Mt 18:17.
Our Lord could never have commanded men to obey two conflicting
authorities. That would spell chaos. The very reasons the Greeks urge
for not becoming Catholics show that they do not really believe their
Churches to be as near to Catholicism as they pretend. Moreover, Greek
priests are getting more and more into the habit of fraternizing with
Protestants in common services. But no Greek Orthodox priest would be
allowed to participate in any Catholic rites. The Greeks acknowledge a
bond with definitely heretical Churches; but they have no real bond with
the Catholic Church. They are outside Catholic unity.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

(CBS News) ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. The monkey that has evaded Florida wildlife officials for more than three years has been caught.

Wildlife officials nabbed the monkey Wednesday afternoon after a five-hour stakeout near a wooded area in a south St. Petersburg neighborhood.

"We concealed ourselves in the area," said Baryl Martin, spokesperson for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, "and we waited for the monkey to approach."

Then the monkey was shot with a tranquilizer dart.

Martin, along with wildlife trapper Vernon Yates and a veterinarian,
waited for the effects of the tranquilizer to set in. But the monkey
made a run for it.

"When we got closer it tried to evade us," Martin said. "We chased it about 50 to 100 yards."

The trio briefly chased the monkey through the woods before Yates grabbed it with his hand and a catch pole.
"He settled down quite a bit after we got our hands on him," Martin said.

The monkey was placed in a cage and taken to an area veterinarian's office for evaluation and testing.

The Rhesus Macaque achieved notoriety in the Tampa Bay area after
repeatedly managing to elude wildlife officials since 2009. The chase,
which spanned at least three counties, has been chronicled by local and
national media.

About a year ago, the monkey
seemed to find a new home in a wooded area in south St. Petersburg where
protective neighbors fed him bananas and refused to give up his
location to authorities.

Attempts to capture the monkey
were escalated two weeks ago after the monkey scratched and bit a
resident of the neighborhood. Traps with bananas were set, but the
monkey managed to steal the bananas without getting caught.

"In
some ways I'll give him credit," Yates told CBS News correspondent
Steve Hartman last week. "He knows not to get up into power lines. He'll
run to a road, he stops and looks both ways for traffic before he runs
across it. This is one of the most intelligent monkeys that I think I
have ever seen."

It is almost time to vote and to make our choices for president and other political offices both local and national.

You have often heard it said that this is a turning point in our country’s history and I could not agree more.

The Church is not a political organism, but as you hopefully have learned in the US Bishops Faithful Citizenship material (which we have made widely available to you in the parishes, in the Compass and on-line), the Church has the responsibility to speak out regarding moral issues, especially on those issues that impact the
“common good” and the “dignity of the human person.”

I would like to review some of the principles to keep in mind as you approach the voting booth to complete your ballot. The first is the set of non-negotiables. These are areas that are “intrinsically evil” and cannot be supported by anyone who is a believer in God or the common good or the dignity of the human person.

These are intrinsically evil. “A well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program that contradicts fundamental contents of faith and morals.” Intrinsically evil actions are those which have an evil object. In other words, an act is evil by its very nature and to choose an action of this type puts one in grave moral danger.

But what does this have to do with the election? Some candidates and one party have even chosen some of these as their party’s or their personal political platform. To vote for someone in favor of these positions means that you could be morally “complicit” with these choices which are intrinsically evil. This could put your own
soul in jeopardy.

The other position to keep in mind is the protection of religious liberty. The recent aggressive moves by the government to impose the HHS mandate, especially the move to redefine religion so that religion is confined more and more to the four walls of the Church, is a dangerous precedent. This will certainly hurt the many
health care services to the poor given by our Catholic hospitals. Our Catholic hospitals in the Diocese give millions of dollars per year in donated services to the poor. In the new plan, only Catholic people can be treated by Catholic institutions.

It has never been our mission to be exclusive of those who are not of our faith. This mandate also places Catholic business owners in a very precarious position in that they, too, will have to pay for those medical “services” which violate Catholic teaching. This has never been the American way and now these moves and others by the present government, will significantly alter and marginalize the role of religious institutions in our society.

These positions are indicators of a broader societal disposition to remove God from the public square and from any relation to society whatever. It is precisely religion and the free exercise thereof which has made this country great in the past.
Many people in our Diocese are presently without work. Our Catholic Charities is serving more and more people who are unemployed or under employed and can barely keep up with the demands. Work is so critical to the family and to the sense of human dignity. An economy which does the most for the common good is an economy that works and provides people gainful employment for the country’s citizens. A government that works pays its bills and models for citizens what it means to be responsible and contributive.

Let us pray for the electorate and let’s take action, that we may vote for good and moral leaders for this great country which will only remain great, if she continues to be and to do the good.

A bizarre twist in the case of Philadelphia Msgr. William Lynn
raises a troubling specter of wrongful conviction and trophy justice for
some accused priests.

It’s NOT always sunny in Philadelphia. The story of the imprisonment
of Monsignor William Lynn darkens a gathering cloud of injustice over a
city called America’s Cradle of Liberty. It’s a story of “trophy
justice,” an ominous term for anyone concerned with due process and
freedom from tyranny.

Trophy justice skirts the fine line between prosecution and
persecution. It’s the sort of “justice” that can evolve when a
defendant’s prosecution doesn’t just right a perceived wrong, but also
helps enhance a prosecutor’s career, or public profile, or ego. The term
describes what the now disgraced and disbarred rogue prosecutor, Mike
Nifong tried to inflict upon three young college students as I wrote in “Sex, Lies, and Videotape: Lessons from a Duke University Sex Scandal.”

The lesson was lost on Philadelphia. The conviction and imprisonment
of Monsignor William Lynn on a single count of child endangerment may
well be a case of trophy justice. It remains a gross debasement of due
process...

Now comes Ralph Cipriano, a veteran reporter who in the 1990s was religion reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
He was recruited by The Beasley Firm to blog about the case of “The
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. William J. Lynn, et al.” Mr. Cipriano is
one of 30 journalists accredited by the Philadelphia District
Attorney’s office to cover this important case. The result is the Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog.
The title of Ralph Cipriano’s September 17 post on that blog leaves nothing to the imagination:“Defense:
Secret Polygraph Test Indicates Father Avery Never Assaulted
10-Year-Old Altar Boy, So Monsignor Lynn Was Convicted of a Crime That
Never Happened...”

Thursday, October 25, 2012

RUSH: Interesting yesterday on The View on ABC, Barbara Walters
talking about Mitt Romney and the three presidential debates, and
Barbara Walters is explaining here to the audience of The View why
Romney did well, why Romney won the debates.
Barbara Walters is explaining the impact that Romney had and why his
debate strategy worked. Now, I want you to understand something as you
listen to this. As irritating as it might be to you, you go into that
debate on Monday night, and the partisans have made up their minds.
There's nothing that can happen in that debate, for example, to make you
change your mind, vote for Obama, there's nothing.

By the same token, there's nothing gonna happen in that debate to
make a committed Obama voter change his or her mind. Who's left? Well,
these people that are amazingly undecided,
can't pull the trigger, don't know what to do, undecided for a whole
host of reasons. That's the target audience, and a lot of them, we're
told, were women. So you have to keep that in mind when you listen
here, because I would venture to say that the target audience that
Romney was aiming for in that debate Monday night was the people that
watch The View. I want you to listen to her and listen to her audience
reaction.

WALTERS: Before these debates, the general impression of Romney was
that he wasn't too smart, and that he was very stiff, and that if he
happened to be elected president, it would be a disaster. Now, you
know, I don't give my opinions here. What you have after these three
debates is that people feel, whether they want to vote for him or not,
that this is a qualified man, this is an intelligent man, and this is a
man who we now don't describe as stiff and totally out of touch. What
is the most important thing for Romney is that he's a different person
seen by the public now than he was before the three debates.

AUDIENCE: (applause)

RUSH: I'm looking at the face of the Official Program Observer, Mr.
Snerdley, who's got a deep frown on his face. Why are you frowning at
me? Yes, that was ribald applause. But I find this fascinating. I
knew people thought Romney was stiff, but I didn't know people thought
he was dumb. That is an albatross around the Republican Party's neck
ever since Bush. I mean, that accusation that Bush was a dumb hick
cowboy and so forth because of the way he spoke and the
deer-in-the-headlight eyes during TV appearances and press conferences,
and they used that to great effect. Because Bush is not that at all.
He's not stupid. He's not dumb. It's ridiculous. But it stuck,
particularly with a lot of moderates and leftists. And now apparently
Barbara Walters said a lot of people thought the same thing about Romney
-- stiff and out of touch, not very smart -- and he's overcome all
that. In these three debates, he's overcome it all.

This is profound. What she's also saying and didn't say, that what
we knew about Romney was what Obama was telling us about Romney via
Obama's TV ads. And what she's saying here is, we saw a Romney that
bears no resemblance to what we were told he was by the Obama campaign.
And the audience on The View, believe me, was the target audience for
the Romney camp in that debate Monday night, people that watch this
show, people like them, and they all applauded Barbara Wawa there. I
just throw this out to you because it's all part of the mix. Here is
Pat Caddell. This is last night on Cavuto on Fox, and Cavuto asked him
about the last debate. He wants to know, did it change anything?

CADDELL: If Obama does not get the traditional presidential
incumbent bounce at the beginning of the week, it's Katie, bar the
door. This is Romney's election to lose and until October 3rd he was
losing it. Now he's back into it. Look what's happening in the states
like Pennsylvania, Minnesota, states that have had no money. If I told
you two weeks before the election in 2008 that Indiana and North
Carolina would go for Barack Obama, you would have said I was crazy.
This is on the verge of tipping. We're somewhere between '80 and '04 and
right now if the president didn't get what he shoulda gotten last
night, uh-oh.

RUSH: Well, he didn't. He didn't get a bounce out of that debate on
Monday night. It was probably zero impact for either of them. It's
the last debate, it happened, it's gone, nobody's reacting to it one way
or the other. There was some strident reaction during the debate,
shortly thereafter, but the overall consensus was that Romney did what
he had to do, did it in spades, didn't get hurt. Obama didn't help
himself, so Caddell says it's over. And Caddell is right. You go look
at where Obama is spending time. These are states that he was supposed
to have owned and wrapped up.

The biggest thing that's working against Barack Obama right now, and I
say this over and over again to make the point, you cannot simply
examine Obama within the context of this campaign to understand where
Obama is with the American people. You gotta go back all the way to the
campaign of 2008 and the first couple, three months of his regime.
That's the Obama that everybody's comparing to, is the 2008 Obama, who
was Mr. Perfect, who was Mr. Messiah, who was gonna heal the planet,
lower the sea levels, cure all the ills, get rid of partisanship, get
rid of racism, the world is gonna love us, and look what he's become.
He has become exactly what he ran against in 2008.

He's become nothing but a mudslinger.
He's nothing but a down-and-dirty typical politician, throwing mud,
throwing dirt, desperate to hang on, not telling people the truth about
things. He is the exact opposite of the way he was presented in 2008.
He's the exact opposite of the way he portrayed himself in 2008. If you
want to have an understanding of how people who voted for Obama eagerly
in 2008 are looking at him this year, you have to include their frame
of reference for the guy. And their frame of reference is not just
these three debates.

Their frame of reference starts with a campaign in 2007 all the way
into 2008 and the election. And even the first couple, three months
with the stimulus bill, Porkulus, shovel-ready jobs, all this great
stuff was gonna happen. None of it has. He's not the person anybody
thought that he was and it's been nothing but downhill. Plus there's no
record to run on. He's got nothing that's happened that he can say,
"You want four more years of this?" That's why he is in big trouble in
all of these states that should have been automatics, just given
incumbency.
END TRANSCRIPT

VIENNA/AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - International election monitors took a dim view on Wednesday of Texas' threat to prosecute them if they observe voting in the state a bit too closely on November 6.

The exchange pitted the Vienna-based human rights watchdog Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe against Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who warned the OSCE not to interfere with polling in state elections.

"The threat of criminal sanctions against OSCE/ODIHR observers is unacceptable," Janez Lenarcic, director of the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) monitoring arm, said in a statement.

"The United States, like all countries in the OSCE, has an obligation to invite ODIHR observers to observe its elections."

Abbott told Reuters on Wednesday that he is considering legal action against the group if it doesn't concede that it will follow the state's laws.

"They act like they may not be subject to Texas law and our goal all along is to make clear to them that when they're in Texas, they're subject to Texas law, and we're not giving them an exemption," he said.

Abbott is skeptical about why the group wants to look at elections in Texas.

"Our concern is that this isn't some benign observation but something intended to be far more prying and maybe even an attempt to suppress voter integrity," he said.

In a letter on Tuesday to the Warsaw-based ODIHR, Abbott had noted that OSCE representatives were not authorized by Texas law to enter a polling place.

"It may be a criminal offense for OSCE's representatives to maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place's entrance. Failure to comply with these requirements could subject the OSCE's representatives to criminal prosecution for violating state law," he added.

He cited reports that OSCE monitors had met with organizations challenging voter identification laws. Texas' voter ID law was blocked earlier this year by a federal court, and Abbott has said he will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"The OSCE may be entitled to its opinions about Voter ID laws, but your opinion is legally irrelevant in the United States, where the Supreme Court has already determined that Voter ID laws are constitutional," Abbott wrote.

Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade also wrote to the United Nations-affiliated OSCE/ODIHR on Tuesday, saying that it's key for Texans to understand that the organization has no jurisdiction over the state.

Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry tweeted on Tuesday: ‏"No UN monitors/inspectors will be part of any TX election process; I commend @TXsecofstate for swift action to clarify issue."

The 56-member OSCE routinely sends monitors to elections and noted November's elections would be the sixth U.S. vote that ODIHR has observed "without incident" since 2002.

For next month's elections it has a core team of 13 experts from 10 OSCE countries based in Washington and 44 long-term observers deployed across the country, it said.

Lenarcic had shared his "grave concern" about the threat of Texas prosecutions with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the OSCE said.

"Our observers are required to remain strictly impartial and not to intervene in the voting process in any way," Lenarcic said. "They are in the United States to observe these elections, not to interfere in them."

A North Korean army minister was executed with a mortar round for
reportedly drinking and carousing during the official mourning period
after Kim Jong-il's death.

(The Telegraph) Kim Chol, vice minister of the army, was taken into custody earlier this year
on the orders of Kim Jong-un, who assumed the leadership after the death of
his father in December.

On the orders of Kim Jong-un to leave "no trace of him behind, down to
his hair," according to South Korean media, Kim Chol was forced to
stand on a spot that had been zeroed in for a mortar round and "obliterated."

The execution of Kim Chol is just one example of a purge of members of the North
Korean military or party who threatened the fledgling regime of Kim
Jong-un.

So far this year, 14 senior officials have fallen victim to the purges,
according to intelligence data provided to Yoon Sang-hyun, a member of the
South Korean Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee..

Woah, he's lost Letterman. My theory is that some elite liberals have taken a good look at Mitt Romney, his background, education, personal and past moderate governing history, lifestyle, and have concluded, "He's not so bad. He's not so different from us after all." Similar to the statement from George Soros from six months ago.

Alternate headline: Even Late Night Comedy Shows Must Interview Obama Off the Record. Noel Sheppard
picks up David Letterman’s belated realization that Barack Obama — one
of his favorite guests — has misrepresented Mitt Romney’s position on GM
and the auto bailout for months. Letterman tells MSNBCs Rachel Maddow
that he finds it disappointing when a challenger proves to be more
honest than an incumbent President:

DAVID LETTERMAN, HOST: Here’s what upset me last night,
this playing fast and loose with facts. And the President Obama cites
the op-ed piece that Romney wrote about Detroit, “Let them go bankrupt,
let them go bankrupt,” and last night he brings it up again. “Oh, no,
Governor, you said let them go bankrupt, blah blah blah, let them go
bankrupt.” And Mitt said, “No, no, check the thing, check the thing,
check the thing.”

Now, I don’t care whether you’re Republican or Democrat, you want
your president to be telling the truth; you want the contender to be
lying. And so what we found out today or soon thereafter that, in fact,
the President Obama was not telling the truth about what was excerpted
from that op-ed piece. I felt discouraged.

RACHEL MADDOW: Because the “Let Detroit go bankrupt” headline you feel like was inappropriate?

LETTERMAN: Well, the fact the President is invoking it and swearing
that he was right and that Romney was wrong and I thought, well, he’s
the president of course he’s right. Well, it turned out no, he was
taking liberties with that.

If you want your President to be telling the truth, then it’s time
for a new President. And when a Democrat has lost David Letterman, and
when Letterman tells people that the Republican was more honest than the
Democrat, that is going to leave a big mark on Obama’s efforts to woo
low-information voters, the very people Obama is trying to woo with his
appearances on Entertainment Tonight, the late-night comedy shows, and MTV.

Who knows? Maybe Jay Leno will ask Obama a couple of tough questions
tonight about his misrepresentations in the debates, and his personal
attacks on Mitt Romney for the last several months. Pretty soon, the
only safe interview for Obama will be on Sesame Street with Big Bird … and he’ll still insist on quote approval first.

Bishop Heriberto Bodeant, secretary for the Uruguayan bishops’
conference, said the lawmakers essentially excommunicated themselves by
voting for abortion.

“Automatic excommunication is for those who collaborate in the execution of an abortion in a direct way,” he said.
“If a Catholic votes…with the manifest intention that he thinks the
Church is wrong about this, he separates himself from the communion of
the Church.”

“Excommunication means you are not in communion with the ecclesial
community to which you openly claim to belong by doing something that
puts you outside communion, and therefore you cannot participate in the
Eucharist,” he added.

The Uruguay Congress approved the law and it now awaits President
Jose Mujica’s signature, though he voiced support for the measure while
it was under consideration. Deputy Pablo Abdala of the opposition
National Party vowed to promote a popular referendum to overturn the
law, assuming Mijica allows it to become law...

"The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows
Mitt Romney attracting support from 50% of voters nationwide, while
President Obama earns the vote from 46%. One percent (1%) prefers some
other candidate, and two percent (2%) are undecided.

Other than brief convention bounces, this is the first time either candidate has led by more than three points in months."

SAN DIEGO (AP) — It could be the muffled sound of singing in the
shower or that sing-songy indecipherable voice from the Muppets' Swedish
Chef.

Surprisingly, scientists said the audio they captured was a
whale imitating people. In fact, the whale song sounded so eerily human
that divers initially thought it was a human voice.

Handlers at
the National Marine Mammal Foundation in San Diego heard mumbling in
1984 coming from a tank containing whales and dolphins that sounded like
two people chatting far away.

It wasn't until one day, after a
diver surfaced from the tank and asked, "Who told me to get out?" did
researchers realize the garble came from a captive male Beluga whale.
For several years, they recorded its spontaneous sounds while it was
underwater and when it surfaced.

An acoustic analysis revealed the
human-like sounds were several octaves lower than typical whale calls.
The research was published online Monday in Current Biology.

Scientists
think the whale's close proximity to people allowed it to listen to and
mimic human conversation. It did so by changing the pressure in its
nasal cavities. After four years of copying people, it went back to
sounding like a whale, emitting high-pitched noises. It died five years
ago.

Dolphins and parrots have been taught to mimic the patterns of human speech, but it's rare for an animal to do it spontaneously.

The
study is not the first time a whale has sounded human. Scientists who
have studied sounds of white whales in the wild sometimes heard what
sounded like shouting children. Caretakers at the Vancouver Aquarium in
Canada previously said they heard one of the white whales say its name.

Monday, October 22, 2012

(Beltway Confidential) Former CBS newsman Dan Rather warned Facebook fans of his show on axs.tv that Mitt Romney could conceivably take Ohio, particularly since the state is controlled by Republicans.

“Keep in mind: The whole upper tier of Ohio state government is
in the hands of the GOP now,” Rather explained in a Facebook post this
morning. “In very close voting they have the power to influence what
votes are counted and how.”

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Even today, after “Marking Thirty Years of Priesthood,”
I am able to look back on that story and see many subtle ways in which
my defiance of the authority of dissenters attempting to impose their
open rebellion against Tradition came back to haunt my priesthood. I was
branded “an angry conservative.”

It was ironic, and could not possibly have been further from the
truth at that time in my life. I grew up as a liberal Boston Irish
Democrat in a family leaning so far to the left I thought they might
topple. Even today, I am the only member of my family who does not
dismiss the Catholic Church as a quaint anachronism in modern culture, a
throwback to the Middle Ages that the world is slowly shedding to pave
the way for true social progress. We were “Kennedy Catholics,” which
today I know meant that being Catholic was something we wore around our
necks, but penetrated no deeper.

When I entered religious life in 1974, my family thought I had gone
insane. By the time I commenced graduate studies in theology, I was sold
almost completely on the whole movement of the left, and the basic
premise that the Church cannot move the modern world without fully
accommodating the modern world.

I remember the round of enthusiastic applause from much (but not all)
of the seminary student body when I described in 1979 – to the nodding
approval of faculty – that Humanae Vitae might be one of the last gasps
of a Church in the throes of death, clinging to an era long past while
ignoring the needs of human nature. “Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego
coqnosco: et peccatum meum contra me est semper.” (Psalm 51: 3).

That
was my own dark wood of error, and those woods were dark indeed. My
wake-up call was the incident involving Pope John Paul II and our
seminary rector and faculty that I described in “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”
What I learned about myself from that sordid story is that to be a good
Catholic dissenter of the elitist left required that I also be a good
follower, that I cease to think for myself and draw my own conclusions,
that I accept without question an agenda of rebellion against authority
imposed by others who would do my thinking for me. That agenda required
me to commit to a version of Church and priesthood in which the
Magisterium is a supremely obscene word to which I must never again
refer or defer.

I could not be such a follower, and still can’t. In those days, our
sponsoring dioceses assigned us to a seminary to which we had no choice
but to attend. Academically, I excelled and that seemed all that
mattered – that, and whether I would continue to toe the liberal line,
falling into place with an intellectual refutation of Tradition when
called upon.

I parted ways with that set of expectations when I witnessed a small
group of seminarians from the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska being taunted
by some of my East Coast leftist peers one evening as they gathered to
pray the rosary together in the seminary chapel. Such open displays of
spiritual tradition were simply not done at St. Mary’s Seminary &
University in the 1970s.

The next day, they and their traditionalism were placed on trial in a
class in fundamental theology. It was to be a sort of lynching, but
light finally dawned on Marblehead (at least, on my own marble head). I
wasn’t having it, and came to their defense. I was branded a dissenter
from the left, a traitor to the liberal cause... (continued)

Friday, October 19, 2012

(ChurchMilitant.TV) Hello everyone and welcome to The Vortex where lies and falsehoods are trapped and
exposed. I’m Michael Voris.

Everything wrong with the Church throughout the world today is summed up in the
fiasco that was the Al Smith dinner in New York last night - the event where public
enemy number one of Christ and His Holy Roman Catholic Church got to use and abuse
the bride of Christ all under the watchful and supporting eye of a prince of the Church.

In the remaining couple of days before the lead up, some intrepid researchers did a little investigating - only to discover that a number of muckety-mucks who comprise the board of directors of the Al Smith foundation which sponsors the dinner are big-time Obama worshipers.

For example, exceedingly wealthy real estate developer John Zuccotti, who helped the hapless anti-Church Catholic Joe Biden when he ran for president a few years back.

John Zuccotti has all the admiration of the money people in NYC. He mingles with the in crowd.

Then there is Robert Wright who was the grand pooba of the television network NBC
for nearly 20 years right up until five years ago. That’s quite an impressive resume, that one job alone.

Next is Peter Kiernan III, a former Goldman-Sachs moneyman and investment banker
who has piloted many many projects that have assets into the billions.

And of course, we can’t leave out Al Smith IV, the chairman of the Foundation.

Federal Election Commission records he has showered donations on every pro-abortion democrat New York has offered up: Charles Schumer, Bill Clinton, Hilary Clinton, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Christopher Dodd, even the notorious Congressman Jerry Nadler who has never missed chance to support the executions of pre-born babies in every congressional vote that has come up.

All these guys bankrolled by Al Smith IV. You wonder what his great grandfather who
the event is named after would think of him.

But see, Catholic associations cozying up to and hopping in bed with rich or influential people is nothing new in America. We see it in the Knights of Columbus who refuse to expel from their midst pro-abortion and pro same-sex marriage Catholic politicians from their midst... hiding behind the canard that the bishops don’t do anything about them.. so the KofC doesn’t have the right.

Total garbage that by the way.

And of course... there is Notre Dame and the filthy rich board of trustees there... a large number of whom are big-time Chicago democratic machine operatives who are of course all in the tank for Obama and his child-murdering policies. They were the ones who orchestrated the entire May 2009 insult to the Mother of God by bringing Obama to campus to not just speak, but drape him in honors, complete with the seal of the university of the Mother of God.

But when you turn to the situation of the Al Smith dinner, you are especially revolted.

This is nothing more than a sellout of the faith presided over by a Cardinal of the
Church, Timothy Dolan, who is touted as some kind of conservative wonderman.

He has cooperated in this insult to the faith with these moneychangers... who are big time Obama cheerleaders. His Eminence has openly declared in an Wall Street Journal article that he and other bishops failed miserably to teach the faith and defend the Church in the area of sexual morality.

He and other bishops are constantly droning on about the need to re-establish a Catholic identity. You don’t establish a Catholic identity by selling out the faith for your own personal popularity and to hob nob with a bunch of wall street moguls who spend their efforts and money to ensure that enemies of the faith keep getting elected.

Cardinal Dolan is a priest who has a duty to catechize and teach these men and others like them the faith that they either never got taught properly and or simply rejected... whichever the case.

If they won’t listen, then he needs to shake the dust from his feet... the words of the Master... not mine. But he has not only not done that, he has acquiesced to their bringing in Obama and refused the pleas of tens of thousands of faithful Catholics to rescind the invitation.

He has ignored the sheep and opened the front door for the wolf... complete red carpet and all. And here is why we say... this Al Smith Dinner is a microcosm of all that is wrong in the Church.

The faithful are ignored... the wicked are elevated and mingled with and supported... and the leaders are the most culpable of all. Since the Church is quite obviously in dire need of cleansing... and since those who are charged with keeping Her pure will not do the job... then Our Lord Himself will have to sweep them aside and do it Himself.

Often when the Church has been in need of purification... Our Lord has permitted
persecution to ensue. Can anyone look around at the Church today and say she is not in need of massive purification.

Bring it on. We should be happy to be victims for the Faith. Let the persecution begin!

"Governor Romney's argument is, we're not fixed, so fire him and put
me in," said Clinton. "It is true we're not fixed. When President Obama
looked into the eyes of that man who said in the debate, I had so much
hope four years ago and I don't now, I thought he was going to cry.
Because he knows that it's not fixed."

UPDATE: A Romney spokesman comments: "We agree with
former President Bill Clinton. The economy has not been fixed under
President Barack Obama. Today, more than 23 million Americans are
struggling for work, poverty has increased and food stamps are at
record levels. Mitt Romney believes we can do better by creating 12
million new jobs with higher take-home pay, cutting spending to put our
nation on course for a balanced budget, and actually fixing our
economy."

It is confirmed that Bishop Fellay has ordered Bishop Williamson to shut down dinoscopus.org, end Eleison Comments, make "public apology" for the harm he has caused to the SSPX and the Church by publishing Eleison Comments,
and commit to making "reparation" for the remainder of his days.
Failure to comply with these conditions (interestingly, there is no
parsing of "required" and "desirable") in toto would result in his expulsion on or around one week from today's date: the 23rd of October, 2012...

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

"On Monday, October 15, 2012, Bishop Mark J. Lawrence, the 14th Bishop of
the Diocese of South Carolina was notified by the Presiding Bishop of
The Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, that on September 18,
2012 the Disciplinary Board for Bishops had certified his abandonment
of The Episcopal Church. This action by The Episcopal Church triggered
two pre-existing corporate resolutions of the Diocese, which
simultaneously disaffiliated the Diocese from The Episcopal Church and
called a Special Convention. That Convention will be held at St.
Philip’s Church, Charleston, on Saturday, November 17, 2012..."

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 15, 2012 (Zenit.org).- In his Sunday Angelus address, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the wealthy in light of the Gospel of the rich man. The Holy Father said that while it is difficult for a rich man to enter into heaven, it is not impossible. In fact, the Pope said, "God can conquer the heart of a person who has many possessions and move him to solidarity and sharing with the needy, with the poor, to enter into the logic of the gift."

The Pope said that while the rich man in the Gospel faithfully observed the commandments, he had not yet discovered "true happiness." The Holy Father also highlighted that, as many wealthy people do, the rich man "thinks that he might be able to 'buy' eternal life in some way, perhaps by observing some special commandment."

Jesus, Pope Benedict XVI continued, while admiring the rich man's desire, also understood his weakness was the attachment to riches, therefore, inviting him to give everything to the poor. Contemplating on the St. Clements reflection of the Gospel, the Pope said that the rich aren't condemned but must only learn to use their wealth and obtain life.

"The Church’s history is full of examples of rich people who used their possessions in an evangelical way, achieving sanctity. We need only think of St. Francis, St. Elizabeth or St. Charles Borromeo," he said.

After the recitation of the Angelus, the Holy Father called attention to the beatification of Frederick Bachstein and 13 Brothers of the Order of the Friars Minor, saying that "they remind us that believing in Christ also means suffering with him and for him."

The Holy Father concluded his address invoking God's blessing on the faithful, saying that he hoped during this Year of Faith the faith may "have the courage to ask the Lord what more can we do, especially for the poor, the lonely, the sick and the suffering, so as to be witnesses and heirs to the eternal life God promises."

(American Thinker) We can now fairly assume that both Democrat and Republican analysts concluded that President Obama's weak performance
in the first presidential debate could be attributed to the absence of a
teleprompter. The president's reputation -- earned or unearned -- as a
golden orator cannot be upheld without this prop. So, to level the
playing field -- as he is fond of saying -- he was provided with a flesh
and blood teleprompter in the shape of Candy Crowley for the second
debate...

Crowley intervened from the very first exchange, like a mother
prompting her little boy who forgot his spiel or maybe doesn't want to
brag about his accomplishments. The pattern was set: each candidate
would give his answer to the (elementary) question, Candy would call on
Barack and throw him some talking points, he would take the cue and do a
little performance, and when Mitt Romney tried to do his rebuttal Candy would say that's enough, let's go to the next question...

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

It is getting progressively harder and harder for me to leave the house.
Not because I'm threatened or under surveillance or anything like
that. It's because every situation or conversation I enter, or even
just OVERHEAR or OBSERVE, is potential fodder for this bizarre website.
It's as if I am eavesdropping on and then plagiarizing the world or
something.

(Pause for moment of scruple-driven angst.)

Aaaaannnnddd......I'm over it.

So, I found myself in a discussion, the base of which was the question
of what happens to babies who are killed in abortion. Do they go to
heaven?

The answer is NO, they do not.

If you are
recoiling in disgust and red-faced rage at this point, I would urge you
to humble yourself and receive instruction, as this is a nuanced yet
incredibly important bit of theology - and a lesson in logic. When
you're done reading it, I guarantee you will have learned something. If
you are Catholic, you will see how shallow and inadequate your
catechisis has been, and if you are Protestant you will see how much you
are missing.

1. The Church teaches and has taught from day one
that baptism is essential for salvation. This comes straight from Our
Lord Himself:

He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned. Mark 16:16

This is repeated throughout the four Gospels and in the epistles.
Baptism, baptism, baptism. Go forth and BAPTIZE. Don't just talk.
BAPTIZE everyone you possibly can. With water. In the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. In fact, baptism is so
non-negotiably essential that ANYONE can baptize - even a non-Christian.
As long as the baptism is with water, and the form is correct, meaning
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (or
Holy Spirit), then an atheist could baptize. A musloid could baptize. A
Jew could baptize. A Hindu could baptize.

(*The notable and particularly relevant caveat to this is if the baptizer says the right words, but consciously means something completely different by the words "Father", "Son" and "Holy Ghost".
I'm talking about the cult of Mormonism here. Did you know that
Mormons teach and believe that God the Father is one of many "gods" who
came from another planet and just happens to be the "god" of this
particular planet, and that "God the Son" was once a non-divine mortal
man, and that satan was his brother, and that the man they call "Jesus"
at some point achieved divinity and was made the god of this world?
Further, Mormons teach that when they die that they will also become
gods and be given their own "celestial kingdoms" to rule? Mormons also
teach that the Holy Spirit and the Holy Ghost are two completely
separate and distinct beings.

Bottom line: Mormons are
NOT, NOT, NOT Christians and Mitt Romney is NOT, NOT, NOT a Christian.
Does that piss you off? Wow. I SO don't care. It is the truth. Deal
with it.

Oh, and for the record, Obama is not baptized
either. One of the huge selling points of Jeremiah Wright's Trinity
"church" is the fact that he DOES NOT baptize muslims. Thus, muslims
who are engaging in the war tactic of KITHMAN, that is pretending to be
non-muslim while infiltrating a culture for stealth jihad, flock to
Wright's "church" because they can pose as Christians while avoiding the
sacrament of Baptism. If you don't believe me, just call Trinity and
ask them yourself. Their number is (773) 962-5650. Be polite.

Not that this election is real, and not that the First American
Republic still exists, but I do think that it is VERY interesting and
telling that NEITHER candidate is Christian, which would be a first, and
is certainly apropos.)
2. What is heaven? Heaven is
nothing less than indwelling INSIDE the Trinity, contemplating the
Trinity for all eternity. This is hard to understand from the
"outside", but we know that this is the case from the words of Our Lord
Himself:

That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. John 17:21

This is called "the Beatific Vision", which could perhaps be
simplistically stated as "seeing and contemplating God from the inside."

3. Who DESERVES the Beatific Vision as a mere corollary to
their existence? Nobody. Not even the Angels. The Angels had to
choose to serve God even before the creation of the world. They were
created by God, and then shown the plan of Salvation History before the
Big Bang (Let There Be Light). Those who chose to serve God were granted
the Beatific Vision. Those who chose not to serve God, specifically
the Second Person, the Divine Man, Whom they resented as being "beneath
them", were cast out of heaven, never having seen the Beatific Vision,
and never to see it. Satan and demons are real.

Even the Blessed Virgin Mary doesn't DESERVE the Beatific Vision merely as a corollary to her existence. She says so in her Magnificat:

And Mary said: My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.
Because He hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from
henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. Because He that is
mighty, hath done great things to me; and holy is His name. And His mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear Him.

Luke 1:46-50

Given these realities, does an unborn baby DESERVE the Beatific Vision? The answer is obviously "no".
4. But an unborn baby (Or even a born and yet unbaptized baby) has
committed no sin. Their fate can't be hell. So where do they go? The
answer is, they go to a "place" (for lack of a better word) called
Limbo, specifically The Limbo of the Innocents. There is another Limbo
called the Limbo of the Fathers which was filled with the righteous
people who died on earth before Christ opened the gates of heaven on
Calvary. The Limbo of the Fathers no longer exists - Christ emptied it
while He was in the tomb.

At this point many are screaming, "BUT THAT ISN'T IN THE BIBLE!"

Oh, yes it is. If you bother to READ IT. And again, from the lips of Our Lord, no less:

And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. And the rich man also died: and he was buried in hell. Luke 16:22

Abraham's Bosom is NOT the Beatific Vision. When Our Lord spoke these
words, the Gates of Heaven were yet closed because He had not yet opened
them. Abraham's Bosom was the Limbo of the Fathers.
The proof for the Limbo of the Innocents actually comes from the very first scripture I quoted above:

He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned. Mark 16:16

Read that VERY carefully. Note that the second phrase does NOT tie
non-baptism to condemnation. Condemnation (hell) is for those who
reject Christ, but the baptismal state is left open. Note that in the
first phrase that baptism is only tied to the Beatific Vision. What
does this tell us? It tells us first that a person MUST be baptized in
order to reach the Beatific Vision. It also tells us that those who die
unbaptized and yet without any sin (which can only mean babies, both
pre-born and born, and children who have not reached the age of reason,
and therefore cannot be guilty of sin) DO NOT GO TO THE HELL OF THE
DAMNED.

Makes sense, huh? And remember, NOBODY deserves the Beatific Vision.

So, the "place" these innocent yet unbaptized babies and children go is
the Limbo of the Innocents. The Limbo of the Innocents is a "place"
wherein these souls experience MAXIMUM NATURAL HAPPINESS, but do not
experience the SUPERNATURAL happiness of the Beatific Vision.

Let's think about this. Maximum natural happiness. Guys, you have
never, ever experienced anything even close to maximum natural
happiness. In fact, if you were given the gift of five seconds of
maximum natural happiness, I'll bet that you would swear up and down
that you had just seen heaven and that there is no way that there could
be anything better. You would be wrong. Heaven, the Beatific Vision,
is so far above Limbo that Limbo is considered to be at the edge of hell
by comparison, simply because it is outside the Beatific Vision. But
it is still better than anything you have ever experienced.

5. Now, we have to answer the question, "Why can't unbaptized babies go straight to heaven?"
It is a great question, with a great answer. On the surface it sounds
"unfair" that a baby, especially a baby that was murdered in cold blood
by its own mother, couldn't go straight to heaven, especially when we
consider the fact that the mother could sacramentally confess her sin
and die in a state of grace and achieve the Beatific Vision herself.

Boo! Not fair, the critics say.

Again, let's think this through. WHAT IF all aborted babies went
straight to heaven? How would the logical truth table from that false
premise play out?

Well, if all aborted babies are GUARANTEED
heaven, but a born person who lives to the age of reason runs the risk
of living a life wherein they reject Christ and end up in hell, wouldn't
it be an act of charity and mercy for every mother everywhere to abort
every child they conceive so that the child will absolutely, positively
spend all of eternity enjoying the Beatific Vision?

Let's put a
context to it. Let's say a poor woman who lives in an urban slum gets
pregnant. She looks around and sees a terrible environment. She knows
that her child will be raised fatherless. She knows that the odds of
her child escaping the grasp of the gangs and the Marxist overlords are
very slim. What should she do? If all aborted babies go to heaven,
then the young mother should kill the child in utero, thus guaranteeing
her child heaven and sparing it the risk of life in this world and thus
the high risk of being lost to hell. In fact, it would be selfish and
uncharitable for her NOT to abort the child....

Do you see what
happens when we try to form a logical truth table off of a false
premise? We end up with abortion as a charitable act of mercy. And
satan SQUEALS with delight.

6. Now the question must be
answered, "Why SHOULD the young mother allow her child to be born even
with the high risk of the child eventually being lost to hell?"

The answer comes from Lesson Number One in the Catechism:

Q: Why did God make you?

A: God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven.
Every person is made by God with the desired end of the Beatific
Vision. If the mother aborts the baby, the baby can never see the
Beatific Vision, which is what God created the child for, and nothing
less. In order to achieve the Beatific Vision, a person must be born
and baptized, and die in a state of grace. Because remember, NOBODY
deserves the Beatific Vision. Nobody.

No matter how long the
odds seem, that baby is born with the Beatific Vision within grasp.
Human beings CAN NEVER deprive a child of that chance.

And Jesus beholding, said to them: With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible.

Matthew 19:26

7. What about miscarriages?

True miscarriages and stillbirths are God's will, and remember, those
babies, like the aborted babies, are granted maximum natural happiness
in the Limbo of the Innocents. We must trust God in these matters. It
is possible that God in His omniscience and Divine Providence allows
miscarriages and stillbirths in order to bring about the best possible
outcome for the child. This is a very difficult idea to face, but
again, it comes straight from Our Lord Himself:

The
Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of Him: but woe to that man
by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed: it were better for him, if
that man had not been born. Matthew 26:24

It would
have been better for Judas Iscariot to have been miscarried because
then he would have the maximum natural happiness of the Limbo of the
Innocents. Instead, Judas betrayed Our Lord, doubted His mercy and
never sought forgiveness and instead committed suicide, thus choosing
the hell of the damned for all eternity.

But remember, ONLY GOD
can make that call. No man can ever, ever play God and induce
miscarriage, which is to say MURDER a pre-born child.

8. Why have I never heard anything about any of this up until now?

First, if you are Catholic and under the age of 60 or so, it is because
the Church has been infiltrated by Marxist-homosexualists tasked with
destroying the Church from the inside. Their father, satan, wants to
convince as many people as possible that abortion is "morally neutral"
or "contingent on the circumstances".

Beyond that, satan actually does
want people to believe that aborted babies go to heaven so that
eventually he can convince people that abortion can be a MORAL GOOD.
Satan gets two things out of this. He maximizes the number of people
who murder their own children and then DO NOT REPENT, thus dying in
mortal sin and going to hell. The second thing satan achieves is
keeping as many human beings from achieving that which he himself
rejected and RAGES against: The Beatific Vision. Satan is willing to
compromise and cut his losses. He'll take the baby going to the Limbo
of the Innocents, never seeing the Beatific Vision PLUS the damnation of
the unrepentant mother AND the damnation of the apostate priests, nuns
and clergy who told the woman that her abortion wasn't a sin because
"the baby is in heaven."

If you are Protestant, it is because
Protestantism is intrinsically stupid and insipid. That's it. Superfun
Rockband church. Jimmy Swaggart. Brain dead Methodist "we're just
here to keep up appearances". Don't believe me? Okay. Ask your pastor
on Sunday if aborted babies go to heaven, and after reading this, stand
back and bask in the bumbling ignorance of his (or her, shudder)
answer. Yep. You can almost visualize it right now, can't you?

Limbo is in the news. A new document from Rome's International
Theological Commission [ITC], released on April 20, states that
Catholics may virtually ignore the teaching on limbo and may have "many
reasons for hope" for the salvation of unbaptized infants.

Practically every major newspaper carried the story. Headlines such as
"Vatican Abolishes Limbo;" "Vatican Report Rejects Limbo;" and "Concept
of Limbo Now Assigned to Oblivion" appeared throughout the world.

Yet despite this latest study, many intend to hold to the conventional
teaching that the souls of infants who die before Baptism do not attain
Heaven, because they have not obtained the remission of Original Sin
that only Baptism provides. They go to Limbo, a place of natural
happiness wherein they suffer no pain of punishment since they are
guilty of no personal sin.
Listed below are 24 of the chief reasons why I, and thousands of
Catholics the world over, will not reject the Catholic doctrine of
Limbo:

1. Because Pope Pius VI, in a formal magisterial decree, denounced the
rejection of Limbo as "false, rash, slanderous to Catholic schools";

2. Because the ITC's study on Limbo is neither a papal document, nor a
magisterial document, but a modern theological exercise that does not
bind the conscience of Catholics in any way;

4. Because it is an unchangeable article of Faith, taught infallibly by
the Second Council of Lyons and the Council of Florence that the souls
of those who depart this life in the state of original sin are excluded
from the Beatific Vision;

5. Because Pope Sixtus V taught in a 1588 Constitution that victims of
abortion, being deprived of Baptism, are "excluded from Beatific
Vision," which is one of the reasons Sixtus V denounced abortion as a
heinous crime;

7. Because to reject Limbo strengthens the implicit denial of Original Sin, a chief error of our age;

I. The Limbo of the Fathers - A place and state of rest wherein the
souls of the just who died before Christ's ascension were detained until
he opened Heaven to them; referred to as "Abraham's Bosom" (Luke
xvi,22) and "Paradise" (Luke xxiii, 43) and notably in Eph. IV, 9 and I
Peter iii, 18-20.

II. The Limbo of Children - It is of faith that all, children and
adults, who leave this world without the Baptism of water, blood or
desire and therefore in original sin are excluded from the Vision of God
in Heaven. The great majority of theologians teach that such children
and unbaptized adults free from grievous actual sin, enjoy eternally a
state of perfect natural happiness, knowing and loving God by use of
their natural powers. This place and state is commonly called Limbo.
(Definition from A Catholic Dictionary, 1951)
References in Scripture:

"And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried
by the angels into Abraham's bosom. And the rich man also died: and he
was buried in hell" Luke 16:22
"Now that He ascended, what is it, but because He also
descended first into the lower parts of the earth" Ephesians 4:9

"Because Christ also died once for our sins, the just for
the unjust: that He might offer us to God, being put to death indeed in
the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit, In which also coming he preached
to those spirits that were in prison: Which had been some time
incredulous, when they waited for the patience of God in the days of
Noe, when the ark was a building: wherein a few, that is, eight souls,
were saved by water." 1 Peter 3:18-20

"And he said to Jesus: Lord, remember me when Thou shalt
come into Thy kingdom. And Jesus said to him: Amen I say to thee, this
day thou shalt be with Me in paradise" Luke 23:42-43

Church Teaching:

"Moreover as Christ was true and perfect man, He of course
was capable of dying. Now man dies when the soul is separated from the
body. When, therefore, we say that Jesus died, we mean that His soul was
disunited from His body. We do not admit, however, that the Divinity
was separated from His body. On the contrary, we firmly believe and
profess that when His soul was dissociated from His body, His Divinity
continued always united both to His body in the sepulchre and to His
soul in limbo. It became the Son of God to die, that, through death, He
might destroy him who had the empire of death that is the devil, and
might deliver them, who through the fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to servitude." Catechism of Council of Trent, The
Creed, Article IV

"Q: What are we taught in the Fifth Article: He descended
into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead? A: The
Fifth Article of the Creed teaches us that the Soul of Jesus Christ, on
being separated from His Body, descended to the Limbo of the holy
Fathers, and that on the third day it became united once more to His
Body, never to be parted from it again". Catechism of St. Pope Pius X,
The Fifth Article of the Creed

"The fourth and final reason is that Christ
might free the just who were in hell [or Limbo]. For as Christ wished to
suffer death to deliver the living from death, so also He would descend
into hell to deliver those who were there". Also, "The reason they were
there in hell [i.e., Limbo] is original sin which they had contracted
from Adam, and from which as members of the human race they could not be
delivered except by Christ. Catechism of St. Thomas Aquinas, The Creed,
The Fifth Article, Reasons for Christ's Descent

"The limbo of the Fathers and the limbo of children,
without any doubt, differ as to the quality of punishment or reward.
For children have no hope of the blessed life, as the Fathers in limbo
had, in whom, moreover, shone forth the light of faith and grace. But as
regards their situation, there is reason to believe that the place of
both is the same; except that the limbo of the Fathers is placed higher
than the limbo of children, just as we have stated in reference to limbo
and hell." Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas, Whether the limbo of
children is the same as the limbo of the Fathers?

"Suarez, for example, ignoring Bellarmine's protest,
continued to teach what Catharinus had taught -- that unbaptized
children will not only enjoy perfect natural happiness, but that they
will rise with immortal bodies at the last day and have the renovated
earth for their happy abode (De vit. et penat., ix, sect. vi, n. 4);
and, without insisting on such details, the great majority of Catholic
theologians have continued to maintain the general doctrine that the
children's limbo is a state of perfect natural happiness, just the same
as it would have been if God had not established the present
supernatural order" 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia, Limbo
Summary
Contrary to what some Catholics have come to believe today, the doctrine
of Limbo is mentioned in Scripture (albeit by a different name) and as
we can see above, has been taught century to century by the Catholic
Church. To deny its existence is not Catholic.

“How many voices in our materialist society tell us that happiness is to be found by acquiring as many possessions and luxuries as we can? But this is to make possessions into a false god. Instead of bringing life, they bring death.”- Pope Benedict XVI

"This past Wednesday I was in part of the hospital that was devoted to people who have memory problems like my father. The people here may have no idea who I am but they light up at the sight of a collar. People who cannot carry on a conversation click “on” and join in prayer as if there were little wrong with them, their faces relaxing in this moment of peace amidst the chaos of illness."- Fr. Valencheck

"The priest's life is not his own. He does not live it for himself and his personal fulfillment, but for the salvation of souls."- Fr. Richtsteig

"I am convinced that if we simply follow the liturgical books, say the texts and carry out the gestures properly, in a style continuous with our tradition, the Church’s liturgy has power the capture minds and hearts and transform them.

I starting forming this conviction before I became a Catholic through my experience of Novus Ordo Masses done in an entirely Roman traditional style, closely following the books.

The late Msgr. Richard Schuler would eventually articulate to me in words what I was experiencing in the church. "Just do what the Council asked… do what the Church asks."

Why is worship well executed according to the mind of the Church so effective?

Christ is the true Actor in the sacred action of the Church’s worship. He makes our hands and voices His own as He raises our petitions and offerings to the Father for His glory and our salvation.

Christ’s Holy Church has determined the way by which we may have this encounter with mystery in the liturgy, be taken up in the sacred action.

Although we have the right to our Rite celebrated as the Church desires, liturgy is not about me or us or even you in the pews." - Fr. Zuhlsdorf

"After celebrating Mass facing the Lord I can report these favorable effects from the priest's point of view:

1. I don't have to worry about where to look
2. I don't have to worry about what my face looks like
3. I can weep at the beauty and wonder of it all without concern
4. I can worship more freely and fully
5. I feel more at one with the people of God
6. I am on a journey to God with the people
7. I am not the focus of attention
8. The elevation of the host and the Ecce Agnus Dei have become more of a focus
9. I feel more part of the great tradition
10. I can't see who's not paying attention and feel I have to do something to get their attention back." - Fr. Longenecker

"My rector in Denver, when he was a young priest, was eating dinner at his secretary's house, a widow from Sicily. Thinking he was polite he said, 'If you wish you can call me Michael.' She stopped, put her hand on her hip, and, pointing at him with her wooden spoon, said, 'Don't think I call you Father because I think you're better than me! I call you Father to remind you who you're supposed to be and how you're going to be judged by our Lord!' He passes that lesson on to all his seminarians."- Fr. Andrew

Decalogue Against Temptation

1. Do not forget that the devil exists.
2. Do not forget that the devil is a tempter.
3. Do not forget that the devil is very intelligent and astute.
4. Be vigilant concerning your eyes and heart. Be strong in spirit and virtue.
5. Believe firmly in the victory of Christ over the tempter.
6. Remember that Christ makes you a participant in His victory.
7. Listen carefully to the word of God.
8. Be humble and love mortification.
9. Pray without flagging.
10. Love the Lord your God and offer worship to Him only.